After decades of compromise and decline, God’s people experienced a religious reformation under their Davidic King Hezekiah. No king since David had been filled with such zeal for the faithful worship of Yahweh. King Hezekiah was a king totally devoted to God. He was God’s anointed king (messiah) sent by God with a mission; to bring God’s people back to God by destroying God’s enemies (false idols and foreign oppressors). And he did just that; Hezekiah tore down the high places where people worshiped idols and struck down the Philistines throughout the country. But just when it seemed like the kingdom of God was finally being restored under Hezekiah’s reign and God’s people were flourishing, a mighty power arose to threaten this kingdom. The empire of Assyria prowled into the heart of Hezekiah’s kingdom ready to pounce on the City of David. It is here in Jerusalem where this standoff takes place. God’s king on one side and Assyria’s king on the other, both jostling for the prize of God’s people and God’s land. But at first, Assyria’s weapon of choice against God’s people is not swords but words. Assyria makes their first move by shouting to God’s people in their own language. This is no private political war between two kings. This is a public battle for the heart of the people. The battle for God’s people would be won with the question, ‘Who do you trust?’ Assyria, like the ancient Serpent in the Garden, lays siege to the faith of God’s king and His people by asking doubt-producing questions. ‘Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ Assyria lists the many mighty nations that they have defeated. Why would Judah be any different? Yahweh is just like all the other gods who failed to stop Assyria’s outstretched arm. Assyria attempts to eat away at Judah’s faith in God by lumping Him in with all the other gods. Assyria is unstoppable and Yahweh will be just another notch on their belt. Also like the Serpent of old, Assyria not only throws doubt on God’s trustworthiness, but offers God’s people power and glory and comfort. ‘I will give you 2000 horses if you ally yourself with me. Follow God and you will be doomed to eat your own dung and drink your own urine. But follow me and you will eat of your own vine and drink water from your own cistern. Go with God and you will die but come with me and I will provide you with a better land where you will live.’ Most kings would have surrendered at this point. But not Hezekiah. Not God’s messiah. He doesn’t change sides. He knows what to do about this threat; he humbly asks God for deliverance by going to God’s mouthpiece, the prophet Isaiah. And Isaiah tells the king wonderful news; God will save His people by destroying their enemies. Yet this promise by God is not fulfilled straight away. So when Assyria persists in their persecution of Hezekiah and mocking of His God, the king trusts in God’s promise of salvation. He prays that God would fulfill His promise. And God eventually does. He not only kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, but kills the King of Assyria. Why does God do this? Why does He save Jerusalem? For God’s sake and for David’s sake. God saves Judah to show that He is more powerful than Assyria and all the gods they had triumphed over. And He saved Judah to show that the House of David receives His special attention because of His promises to David. This story teaches us a few very important lessons. First, it teaches us that following God does not mean that life is easy. Until Christ’s return, God’s kingdom is engaged in a constant war with Satan and those who follow him. Opposition from God’s enemies is a daily reality. Second, it teaches us that God’s enemies seek to undermine His authority and attack our faith. They want us to stop trusting God and start trusting them. They want us to switch sides and they will offer temporary pleasures to get us to do that. To fight such temptation, we need to stand firm in our knowledge of who God is and why He is trustworthy. This means we need to know our Bibles. Third, it teaches us that God will defend those who belong to the house of David. Hezekiah was simply a shadow pointing to the greatest Davidic King, Jesus Christ. This means God will only save us if we devote ourselves to King Jesus. God delivers us not because of us, but because of Jesus. And finally, this story teaches us that God always wins, even when it doesn’t seem like it. Even when He is publicly mocked and His enemies prosper. Be rest assured, every rival god is a lie and every enemy will be defeated. He alone is God and He always acts in history to show us that. Putting your trust in God is not misplaced. He offers far more pleasures than any of His enemies can offer us. Better to eat dung for a while and enjoy God forever than to eat like a king for a while and suffer God’s wrath forever. “In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign…And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city…And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived…the Rabshakeh said to them, ‘Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me?’…Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah…said to the Rabshakeh, ‘Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.’ But the Rabshakeh said to them, ‘Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?’ Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: ‘Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the kings command was, ‘Do not answer him’…As soon as King Hezekiah heard it…he…prayed before the Lord and said: ‘O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth…Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of mens hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.’ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard…Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.’ And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword” (2 Kings 18:1-36; 19:1-37 ESV).
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 01:40:32 +0000
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